Disciplined, determined, dominant.

Somerset had worked themselves into a powerful position over the first two days of this match and the weather forecast for the final day had cleared. Even so Yorkshire had fought hard to keep themselves in with a chance with a solid performance in bitter conditions on the second evening.

If this match could be summed up in a millisecond Tim Groenewald’s catch to dismiss Jack Brooks on the last afternoon would serve perfectly. Groenewald had bowled with discipline and precision with Somerset in the ascendancy and predatory fielders all around. Brooks had counterattacked from a position of Yorkshire weakness. His counterattack was determined, the drive that ended his charge ferocious. Eyes like mine beyond the square boundary followed the line of the ball to the straight boundary. On hearing the cheer from the middle I looked for a spectacular catch at mid on or mid off, then noticed Groenewald’s hand by his shin and Brooks looking on in apparent and desperate disbelief.

That was the whole match. Somerset disciplined, determined, dominant. Yorkshire determined, rocked back on their heels, fighting back, overcome. That sequence was repeated several times in the pattern of the match from the first day to the last afternoon. The Brooks dismissal just a shop window on myriad such jewels in this game. That is the County Championship First Division. No quarter expected. None given. Just good head to head intense cricketing struggle. Testing skills. Testing stamina. Testing wills. Until one side triumphs and the other succumbs.

After such a titanic struggle satisfaction, celebration and ‘Blackbird’, the just desserts of the winners. Devastation for the losers. The commitment of the Yorkshire players to their cause was plain to see for anyone who, like me, had watched the last hour, in conversation, in front of the Caddick Pavilion. The disappointment of dismissal clear to see in the eyes of the batsmen as they returned to the Pavilion. That is perhaps to be expected. What I did not quite expect were the looks of, what I can best describe as desolation, in the faces of the Yorkshire team as they came out to shake the Somerset hands. Those players cared about this defeat. They will want to overturn it at Headingley in August. This will be a hard season.

As to the final day. I was told that Somerset took the first wicket with the first ball of the morning and that it was an absolute peach of a ball from Gregory. Taken at 10.59 apparently. The controlling grip on Yorkshire and the Yorkshire score exercised by the Somerset bowlers in the first 24 overs of the innings in the freezing conditions of the previous afternoon and evening had paid dividends. Yorkshire had eked out just 49 runs and had now lost two wickets. They were still a distant 272 runs from victory or 96 overs from the draw.

A folk concert the night before, a late return, a consequent early hours post and some business to conduct before the start meant I had arrived at the ground about 40 minutes late.

The anxiety of the walk along St James Street was relieved when I finally reached a point from where I could see the Colin Atkinson Pavilion scoreboard. I had dreaded Yorkshire 90 for 1. I saw 84 for 4. The man on the gate was as relieved as I. “Ballance and Lyth have gone,” he said. “Experienced players can make life difficult.” And so they can. I remember Geraint Jones batting out a final afternoon at Taunton for Kent in 2010, one of the many things that season that might have cost Somerset the Championship.

I deposited myself just behind square in the Ondaatje Stand, the sun too tempting to turn down after two days on the Somerset Pavilion glacier. If the Club has to diversify, winter sports will be an option up there. I hesitated before I convinced myself it was safe to take a coat off. While I was deciding that issue and sorting my bag the ‘Ooohs’, ‘Aaaahs’, and appeals from the players and ‘c Davies b Gregory’ under ‘last wicket’ on the scoreboard told me the ball might still be doing a bit or the players willing it to.

After a few overs I came to the conclusion, from the way Leaning and Waite were playing, that the pitch did not look as difficult as it sounded, certainly not as difficult as it had looked on the first two days. Three wickets before I arrived suggested the Somerset bowling had extracted the maximum possible advantage from what assistance remained.

As I began to focus on the cricket Overton came in from the Somerset Stand end. He extracted enough from the wicket to induce Waite into popping one straight back to him off what looked, from square, like a straight bat. 99 for 5.

Did that one get up? Matthew Waite returns a catch to Craig Overton. Photo courtesy Michael Williams

The hundred came up to polite applause. I have always found this applause curious. It is instinctively given, at 50 run intervals throughout an innings, whether the score is 300 for 2 or 100 for 5. It is in no way related to merit as, for example, is the applause when a batsman or a partnership passes a 50 run milestone. It is the only applause in cricket I can think of that is given irrespective of merit.

I have often wondered if that applause is a distant echo from the early days of organised cricket in this country. In the eighteenth century, when team scores often did not reach 100 and only rarely stretched to 200, passing 50 was meritorious even with wickets down. In those days applause at 100 for 5 would have been fully merited. I wonder if the practice became entrenched and has never left us. If so, today, when the crowd applauded Yorkshire’s 100 for 5 they were continuing an echo stretching back to an age when there was no middle stump and the ‘scoreboard’ was a stick into which notches were cut.

But I digress. Davey returned to send a couple past the edge, then pulled up during his run up, took his sunglasses from the umpire (not a distant echo from 1772) and walked straight off the field. A practice bowl at Lunch resulted in him discarding the ball before his arm reached the vertical.

Bess completed the one outstanding ball from the over. Overton started his next over by pushing Hodd right back with the first ball. It thudded into his pads and the Umpire had no hesitation in raising the finger. 103 for 6. Somerset hopes were bursting forth, excitement growing, but Yorkshire fought back again. Leaning and Bresnan dug in and fought hard through to Lunch at 116 for 6.

After Lunch the batsmen looked determined to continue and seemed in little real trouble. There were fewer deliveries causing gasps from the fielders or crowd. Indeed, from square, the pitch was beginning to look like it was turning into a 350 run pitch. It did not affect the intensity from the bowlers. They ran in unremittingly hard as the batsmen defended stubbornly. I watched for an hour as the head to head stalemate continued. Somerset pushing. Yorkshire resisting. No-one giving. The score accumulating. Three runs an over resulting. The bowling attacking and miserly. The pressure on both sides rising.

When Leaning struck Bess for four in his fifth over it was the first runs Bess had conceded. When the score reached 153 for 6 it marked the fifty partnership between Leaning and Bresnan. They received much merited applause from a Somerset crowd which is always generous in acknowledging good play by visiting teams.

The comparative lack of alarm with which the Yorkshire pair had reached their milestone fuelled the faintly growing anxiety that the pitch might ease too much. If the luck went with them could Yorkshire just hold out? That they were now nearly half way to their target led to a calculation. If they held out and continued at three an over they could actually win the match. It hardly seemed a realistic possibility but doubts pick away at the mind of the anxiety-prone supporter.

With the new ball ten overs away and Somerset’s three remaining pacemen having to do the work of four Tom Abell brought himself on from the Somerset Pavilion End. No sooner had I uttered the thought to the person I was talking to that Abell had brought himself on to get Somerset through to the new ball than he forced Bresnan right back on to his stumps. The ball speared in after him and the umpire’s finger went up. “He’s a bit sharp isn’t he,” I said to my colleague.

There was no suggestion in Abell’s bowling that he intended to permit an easing of the pressure. Indeed, his pace seemed up by a yard from his spell at the Oval last summer. Perhaps it surprised the Yorkshiremen for when he took Bresnan’s wicket Abell had bowled two overs without conceding a run. Somerset could do with a partnership breaker we concluded. Zander de Bruyn has never really been replaced in that regard my colleague suggested.

It was the beginning of the end, the storming counterattack from Brooks notwithstanding. He scored 21 off 16 balls including four boundaries and added 32 runs with Leaning before that brilliant catch by Groenwald. 191 for 8. The final two wickets added another 29 as the Yorkshire batsmen yielded nothing of their resistance. This was not a team that rolled over.

In the end another wicket to the surprising pace of Abell to a good low catch from Trescothick, who took four in this match, and a third wicket to the persistent Overton finally pushed Yorkshire’s arm flat down on the arm wrestling table. 202 all out and defeat by 118 runs in a low scoring match.

After the match against Essex at Chelmsford in 2017 I reflected that Somerset had been beaten as much in a test of wills as in a test of skills. In this match Somerset had more depth in the pace bowling department than Yorkshire. Yorkshire had to depend too much on Brooks and Coad in the battle with Somerset’s highly integrated four-pronged, perhaps as it turned out five-pronged, pace attack. Neither did Yorkshire have anyone to match Renshaw’s, perhaps unparalleled, April innings.

Even so Yorkshire fought with a powerful will. That it was eventually overcome perhaps had as much to do with Somerset’s immense determination in this match as their burgeoning skill. Perhaps that was reflected in the faces of the Yorkshire players as they emerged to shake the Somerset hands.

Of one thing I have no doubt. The skill of this Somerset team is, as they say, ‘breaking out all over’. Equally important, in my view, is the development of a powerful team spirit and a growing strength of purpose and will. It became apparent last year in that desperate fight against relegation. It will be crucial this year as the team face counties that can match them in skill. When that time comes whichever team has the stronger will and the greater sense of purpose will win.

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‘Farmer White’ Somerset Cricket Writing

The purpose of this website is to provide a location where the collected cricket writing of ‘Farmer White’, most of which is published on diverse ‘threads’ on grockles.com, an independent Somerset cricket website, can be accessed and read in one location.

The posts which appear on this site have been edited to remove some errors and some repetition which can occur especially when a post, as most were, were written at pace immediately after a match and well into the early hours of the morning.

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In addition to match reports the site contains articles and poems related to Somerset cricket all written by ‘Farmer White’. Further examples are added from time to time.

Match reports on every day of Championship cricket in 2018 are now in place. August.

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‘Farmer White’

17th March 2019

‘Farmer White’

‘Farmer White’, the author of this site, was brought up on the story of one of Somerset’s greatest cricketers, JC ‘Farmer’ White; of how his slow left arm bowling was the epitome of accuracy and that he captained England.

An indelible impression was made and, as indelible impressions do, it has remained with him.

When, at the end of the 2016 season, he began to post reports and occasional articles and poems on threads on grockles.com and needed a posting name ‘Farmer White’ was the natural choice.

JC ‘Farmer’ White 1891-1961

JC ‘Jack’ or ‘Farmer’ White played for Somerset CCC from 1907-37. He captained the side from 1927-31.

He remains the County’s leading First Class wicket taker with 2167 at an average of 18.02. He took 100 First Class wickets in a season 14 times.

With the bat he scored six centuries and scored 1000 runs in a season twice.

He took 381 catches.

He played in 15 Tests for England and captained England four times.

In the 1928-9 Ashes series he was England’s top wicket taker with 25.

In the Adelaide Test he took 13 for 256 in 124.5 overs and England won by 12 runs.

‘FARMER WHITE’ ON CRICKET

To locate the post in which a quote appears click the post title located immediately beneath the quote.

“And then, as at the end of the last match of every season, there was the reluctance of many to leave their seats as they watched, across an empty outfield, the memories of the season past. Better memories for Somerset supporters than for Nottinghamshire ones this year.”Notts v Som CC1 Day 3 26th Sep 2018“Winter well”

“Those modes of dismissal summed up the different characters of the bowling of Overton and Gregory. The one seemingly forcing his way through defences to snatch wickets. The other quietly purloining them from unwary batsmen.”Notts v Som CC1 Day 2 25th Sep 2018Business end

“This was Hildreth at his glorious, apparently carefree, but doubtless intensely focused best. As the clouds gathered in they might have been the chariots of gods come to see who was creating such perfection in the imperfect world below.”Notts v Som CC1 Day 1 24th Sep 2018Of genius and the sublime

“Somerset 4 for 2. And then Hildreth. Hildreth did what Hildreth does. An on driven boundary of perfection off his first ball.”
Som v Surrey CC1 Day 3 20 Sep 2018Fighting hard

“They be too good for we,” the comment from across the aisle. There was perhaps more truth in that than even the speaker, who I find to be perceptively knowledgeable about cricket, realised.”
Som v Surrey CC1 Day 2 19 Sep 2018Somerset under the weather

“Somerset in the field were exemplified by Abell at cover. I lost count of the number of times a ball flew off the bat with ‘four’ written all over it only to find itself snared by Abell’s electrifying dives.”Som v Surrey CC1 Day 1 18 Sep 2018Surrey on the road

“If momentum means anything we have a chance,” someone said, and Somerset had picked up momentum at the end of the Sussex innings as fast as the Bungee Blast was shooting people into the air. Whether Somerset could turn the match on its head as the bungee did its rotating victims was another matter.”
Som v Sussex T20 SF 15 Sep 2018 All Wright on the night

“When you are at a match and a Test-class fast bowler gets it right at pace and settles into a wicket-taking rhythm in helpful conditions on a helpful pitch it is as if a force of nature has been unleashed on the batsmen.”
Hants v Som CC1 Day 2 11 Sep 2018A test of class

“On the way back to the car my white wyvern hat attracted another Somerset supporter. It does that. “38 for 3 the last I heard,” he said, “What is going on?” “It’s worse than that,” I replied, “we were 72 for 5 at Lunch.” It was worse than that. “Not us. Them,” he replied. “They are 38 for 3. We were 106 all out.”
Hants v Som CC1 Day 1 10 Sep 2018Seam from a distance

“I don’t know how much apprehension a human being is supplied with at birth but I have used up enough to fill one of those super tankers that are so difficult to to turn around just watching Somerset.”
Som v Lancs CC1 Day 2 5 Sep 2018Four days tied up in two

“After Lunch, Leach got to work. He started to pick away at the batsmen like an examiner picks away at students who have not done their revision.”
Som v Lancs CC1 Day 1 4 Sep 201822 wickets and 298 runs in Stygian Gloom

“To see one Overton in full flow is a sight worth the seeing. To see both in full flow and in tandem is a sight to treasure.”Yorks v Som CC1 Day 4 1 Sep 2018Yorkshire outpaced

“The Yorkshire crowd cannot be faulted for its impartiality when judging the cricket. Even a loud lbw appeal against Hildreth playing well forward met with the response, “No. Thee can’t gi’ that. He’s too far forrard.”Yorks v Som CC1 Day 3 31 Aug 2018Perfect day

“The comments of opposition supporters, as a match unfolds, sit on the opposite end of the emotional seesaw to where your own feelings sit. At Headingley the frequency of the comments keeps the seesaw constantly in motion.”
Yorks v Som CC1 Day 2 30 Aug 2018Not too bad a day

“The gentlest of gentle bat movements produced rocket like power in the ball as it skimmed the outfield and crossed the boundary directly in front of me. “Just look at that,” another Yorkshire voice drooled.”
Yorks v Som CC1 Day 1 29 Aug 2018Cavalcade

“It was as if the Gillette Cup had passed through a time warp and come to visit. The atmosphere had the feel of those days again. And the match had the feel of the great cup runs of the 70s and 80s.”
Som v Notts T20 QF 27 Aug 2018Gregory’s game

“This was a significant victory not just in the context of this season but in marking the continuing development of what has the potential to become one of the all-time great Somerset teams, perhaps, just perhaps, the greatest of them all.”
Som v Essex CC1 Day 4 22 Aug 2018A match for the ages

“The Essex horse was loose in the paddock with no-one apparently able to close the gate other than Leach and it is too big a job for one man.”
Som v Essex CC1 Day 3 21 Aug 2018Of stable doors

“Davey has emerged as a genuine front line bowler to be reckoned with this season. No longer a man dependent on April green tops for his wickets. The ball with which he bowled Westley was as good as any you will see.”
Som v Essex CC1 Day 2 20 Aug 2018Bowled over

“The talk at the back of the Somerset Pavilion (elevated) was of Peter Wight. Of Peter Wight and Fred Trueman. Of the day in 1962 when Fred Trueman arrived late for the Championship match at Taunton and was sent home by the Yorkshire captain for his pains.”Som v Essex CC1 Day 1 19 Aug 20181962 all over again

“As I left after the match I spoke to a couple who might have watched Somerset in the 1950s and probably did. Neither of them had ever watched T20 before. “A great match,” they said, “and the fielding is a level above.”
Sur’y v Som T20 S Group 10 Aug 2018A stellar match

“Van de Merwe examined the batsmen with the accuracy of a dentist probing with a drill. He imposed the same disinclination to make any rash movements on the batsmen as a dentist does on a patient.”
Hants v Som T20 S Group 8 Aug 2018A Rye look at the cricket

“The light relented and after Tea out into this frozen wasteland the rules of cricket demanded the players return.”
Som v Yorks CC1 Day 2 29 Apr 2018Somerset’s Arctic expedition

” There is no need to use superlatives because it was a superlative innings full of its own superlatives.”
Som v Yorks CC1 Day 1 28 Apr 2018A century for lunch

I remember watching Basil D’Oliviera play and not just at the end of his career. Now I was watching his grandson. ‘Fugit inreparabile tempus’ as Virgil had it. ‘It escapes, irretrievable time” as the all-knowing internet translates it.”
Som v Worcs CC1 Day 3 22 Apr 2018 At last

“One of the things about catching up on 43 years while trying to watch the cricket is you miss the odd thing. Sometimes you miss a year, sometimes you miss a wicket. I missed Abell’s.”
Som v Worcs CC1 Day2 21 Apr 2018Hildreth takes it away

“The first day of Somerset’s 2018 season. It started disastrously. The patisserie on Paddington Station where I used to start my journeys to Taunton during the years of my eastern exile had gone.”
Som v Worcs CC1 Day 1 20 Apr 2018Renshaw drives hard